>1. Where elsewhere you find Hungarian /�ve/ loaned as /uya/ in
>Romanian? If you make assumptions you need to refer to some examples
I don't have the entire Hung. vocabulary in my memory (I am no
Hung. native speaker either). Spontaneously occur to my mind
such phonetic occurrences as, e.g., �v�lt "to howl; roar; yell".
Then �v "belt", �ve "his/her belt". Then "az �ve�" /�-ve:/
"his/her". �reg "cavity", �reg "old", �res /�-raeS/ "empty, hollow"
(�res �veg "empty bottle"). And m�ves /m�:-vaeS/ "wright" (e.g.
rezm�ves /'re:z-m�:-vaeS/ "coppersmith") and m�vesz /'m�:-ve:s/
"artist". And �gyes /�-g^aeS/ (inter alia) "skilful". �zem "plant,
works, mill" (compare with uzin�). �zen "to send word", �zenet
"message".
The transition e<->�<->�<->i are quite frequent in Hung. phonetics.
(With the following subdialectal tendency especially in the region
of "uiag�": /o:/ > /u:/, /�:/ > /�:/, /e:/ > /i(:)/ etc. For
details have a look at the wikipedia pages dealing with the
dialects of Hungarian; there's a good page at ro.wikipedia too.)
Of further importance is the "vowel harmony": the vowel in the
endings have to fit the vowel in the root. e /ae/ in -eg fits �
and � in the initial syllable.
>2. Next, /uy&/ means 'water' in Albanian (and is presents also in
>Romanian noian /noy'an/ 'imense waters')
These have nothing in common either with the Yazyg/Ossetian word,
nor with �veg and uiag�. (And Romanian people who use the *subdia-
lectal* word uiaga - coz otherwise all of them would say sticl� -
make use of those bottles rather to pour into them brandy than
fresh water.)
>So uya-g& 'bottle (glass)' is a similar formation with Ossetic
>apa-ka:
Methinks that can't be so, since the Romanian language word for
"water" happens (what a coincidence!) to be... "apa". So why on
earth would have decided ancient Romanians make *uya out of the
Iranian apa! (Moreover, and again: it is by no means uya, but it
is u-ya. And this split u<break>ya is so because of the same
break between � and ve in Hungarian. Besides, and I underline
this, because it is also highly relevant, only in some regions
is �veg rendered as uiaga: in other regions, south of the former
ones, there ain't no uiaga whatsoever, but only iag� /yaga/.
Methinks, the native-speakers over there (me representing all
of them in these moments!) dropped the /u/ completely, in order
to do away with this "uncozy" phonetic occurrence in Romanian.
(A similar environment occurs to my mind: the coexistence of
two adapted forms in Hungarian of the Slavic name Vladislav:
Laszlo, which is one of the most frequent Hungarian male names
and Ulaszlo, which is very unusual and virtually limited to some
medieval kings. The otherwise dropped /u-/ tries to prompt
Laszlo look closer to the original Vla(di)slav).)
>The Romanian word is tri-syllabic u-y'a-g&
We were discussing u-ya, not -g&, in that context. (Which I
repeated above.)
>Question:
>
>The First Issue is how a Hungarian �- in �veg can appear
>from an Ossetic a- in avg?
To get an answer, one needs the transformation rules typical of
Hungarian, esp. of old Hungarian. As well as to be aware of the
intermediary forms of the word, i.e. prior to the latest one.
I haven't yet read �veg in medieval Hung. texts (say, the 14th,
15th centuries).
And I for one don't know how the a in Ossetian avg has to be
pronounced, or whether avg is... today's Ossetian or the
Ossetian of the 13th century -- or whether the Hungarian word
is a loanword from an earlier Alanic variant, and not of avg.
What I know is that uiaga is a regional word used only by a
part of the Romanian native-speakers living in greater Transyl-
vania. (AFAIK, the Banat Romanians don't use it.) If this word
were supposed to have entered the Romanian language in its
earliest stages, why is it unheard of in all other dialectal
areas of it? The late Yazyges that stayed for a while in Moldavia
around 1200 could've left avg or the like to Moldavians, but
there is no uiaga. Moreover, the founding of the state of
Moldavia was much the inception work of people stemming from
exactly that therritory where there is the strongest occurrence
of uiaga (the dinasty founders had been local luminaries over
there, back in... Maramures). But no, the word hasn't ever made
its way to Moldavia. The Aromanians, Istroromanians, Megleno-
romanians do not have this word, do they? If there were a
link to Albanian, then these communities must have gotten it
and then pass it over to the Romanians living in the north.
George